SOCHI, Russia – Feb. 20, 2014 – Tomorrow’s highly-anticipated men’s ice hockey semifinal between the Team USA and Canada will be presented across NBCSN, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports Live Extra app, reaching viewers at home, at work and on the go. Coverage begins at 11:30 a.m. ET/8:30 a.m. PT.

NBC Olympics is rolling out a special one-day marketing campaign to alert viewers where they can see the game, and conducting a conference call this afternoon with hockey analysts and NBC Sports Group Chairman Mark Lazarus to preview the matchup, and discuss the Olympics in general.

Seizing upon the significant interest in the game, NBC Olympics will launch a one-day “What are you doing for lunch Friday?” marketing campaign, complete with television promotions to run across multiple NBCU television networks and websites.

In addition to Team USA-Canada, NBCSN, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports Live Extra app will present tomorrow’s first semifinal game, Sweden-Finland. Coverage begins at 7 a.m. ET/4 a.m. PT.

Tomorrow’s men’s ice hockey semifinal schedule:

TIME

TEAMS

NETWORK

WEB STREAM

APP STREAM

7 am ET/4 am PT

Sweden-Finland

NBCSN

NBCOlympics.com

NBC Sports Live Extra

11:30 am ET/ 8:30 am PT

USA-Canada

NBCSN

NBCOlympics.com

NBC Sports Live Extra

Calling Team USA-Canada will be Emmy Award-winner Mike ‘Doc’ Emrick (play-by-play), Eddie Olczyk (analyst), and Emmy Award-winner Pierre McGuire (Inside-the-Glass analyst). Olczyk and McGuire will also call Sweden-Finland, and will be joined by Dave Strader (play-by-play). Liam McHugh, Mike Milbury and Jeremy Roenick will provide on-site studio coverage for both games.

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MARKETING

In anticipation of what is expected to be a highly-viewed weekday game across television, the web and mobile devices, NBC Olympics is rolling out a one-day marketing campaign – “What are you doing for lunch Friday?” — that will encourage fans to watch the game knowing many will be on their lunch break.

Fifteen-second promotional spots will run across multiple NBCUniversal television networks, including within Olympic primetime programming tonight on NBC. Digital banner ads will also appear on NBC Sports websites, informing users that they can “See it live here!”

“There aren’t many midday, weekday sporting events of this magnitude, and we want to alert viewers where they can see the game, whether it be television, the web or app,” said NBC Sports Group CMO John Miller. “This brief, less-than-24-hour campaign encourages those at work to take in the game during their lunch break. And with our television, web and mobile offerings, they can.”

RECORD INTEREST IN TEAM USA’S MEN’S ICE HOCKEY TEAM

Interest in Team USA men’s hockey has been building with two of the team’s four previous games setting records for either viewers or streaming.

U.S.-Russia (Saturday, Feb. 15)

NBCSN averaged 4.1 million viewers for Saturday’s thrilling USA-Russia Olympic men’s hockey game (7:30-10:30 a.m. ET/4:30-7:30 a.m. PT) – setting a record for the most-watched hockey game in the network’s history (previous: 4.0 million for Blackhawks-Bruins in 2013 Stanley Cup Finals Game 3), according to The Nielsen Company. Viewership for the game, in which the U.S. defeated Russia, 3-2, peaked at 6.4 million from 10-10:30 a.m. ET during the tension-laden, eight-round shootout and is the most-watched half hour in NBCSN history.

U.S.-Czech Republic (Wednesday, Feb. 19)

Wednesday’s “TV Everywhere” authenticated live stream of the men’s ice hockey quarterfinal game between the United States and the Czech Republic, in which Team USA won 5-2, generated nearly 800,000 unique users (798,337), the most for any Olympics event in NBC Sports Live Extra history and trailing only the non-authenticated Super Bowl XLVI (2.1 million uniques) for NBC Sports Group’s most-streamed sports event overall. The previous Olympic record was 682,806 uniques for the U.S.-Japan women’s soccer final at the 2012 London Games.

In addition, 24.1 million minutes of Wednesday’s hockey game were streamed – topping by nearly 10 million minutes the second-most streamed event of the Sochi Games. Other streaming highlights:

The USA-CZE game is the best hockey stream of all time, beating Saturday’s USA-RUS and delivering more live starts than the entire 2012 Stanley Cup Finals combined

Yesterday’s game had more streaming consumption than every NFL game NBC Sports Digital has streamed in six years, except for Super Bowl XLVI

It was also the biggest live event ever in the NBC Sports Live Extra app in minutes watched

VANCOUVER GOLD MEDAL GAME REPRISED

Tomorrow’s game is an Olympic rematch. USA and Canada met four years ago at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics in the gold medal game. Canada’s epic 3-2 overtime victory over the U.S. — which aired on NBC on the final Sunday of the Games at 3:20 p.m. ET — averaged 27.6 million viewers with a 15.2/30 household rating.

It stands as the most watched hockey broadcast of any kind since the USA vs. Finland 1980 gold medal game in Lake Placid on February 24, 1980 (32.8 million). Following the game, Bob Costas called it, “One of the greatest sports events I have ever seen.”